


Bread & Circuses

by okay_pretender



Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Minor Character Death, POV Multiple, Sort of an AU, Well - Freeform, circus! dreamers! shenanigans! oh my!, everyone is in mortal peril at all times, long talks in big trucks, there's a lot going on here, there's some lowkey fake marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okay_pretender/pseuds/okay_pretender
Summary: This is my contribution to the Raven Cycle Big Bang 2020. Shout-outs here are extremely necessary. To my beta, Sil- thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times over. Thank you for the questions, the writing advice, the organization when I was lost in the sauce, for being the Geralt to my Ciri. I couldn’t have done it without you. To the amazing, the wonderful, the talented Jake- your mad art skillz made this whole thing come to life. I am forever in AWE. To everyone across multiple Discord servers who sprinted with me, gave me things to read, laughed at my stupid jokes, proposed marriage to me, and yelled with me about our favorite books- y’all are incredible, each and every one. I never thought when I submitted my outline months ago that I would find such lovely friends. You surprise and delight me every day. Enjoy the show!
Relationships: Carmen Farooq-Lane/Liliana, Helen Gansey/Orla, Jordan/Declan Lynch, Mr. Gray | Dean Allen/Maura Sargent
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: TRC Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to the Raven Cycle Big Bang 2020. Shout-outs here are extremely necessary. To my beta, Sil- thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times over. Thank you for the questions, the writing advice, the organization when I was lost in the sauce, for being the Geralt to my Ciri. I couldn’t have done it without you. To the amazing, the wonderful, the talented Jake- your mad art skillz made this whole thing come to life. I am forever in AWE. To everyone across multiple Discord servers who sprinted with me, gave me things to read, laughed at my stupid jokes, proposed marriage to me, and yelled with me about our favorite books- y’all are incredible, each and every one. I never thought when I submitted my outline months ago that I would find such lovely friends. You surprise and delight me every day. Enjoy the show!

**< img src="" />**

_Do you remember when it started? I do. I didn’t know it at the time, but that day was the beginning. The last day before Hennessy showed up, the last day before Carmen started chasing us, the last day before you and I lost our chances forever. We were doomed the second I announced the show, weren’t we? We were doomed before I even knew I loved you._

Helen set the pen down. She shook her head at herself. These dramatics really suited her former fellows more than they did her. Maybe they’d rubbed off on her. Maybe even now, months after she’d left them, she could still feel their eyes on her, hear their voices, feel the sense of family settled over them like a blanket.

The entire company was gathered in one room to plan this summer’s grand tour. While wildly successful, HEPCO’s performers were difficult to manage. Capricious, eccentric, and colorful, the cast and crew of the “greatest show on earth” made for an... interesting set of coworkers.

Who was Helen kidding? They were a mess.

Her brother, of course, took the opportunity of a few minutes in a room with others to go on at length about either Owain Glendower or circus management, Helen couldn’t be sure. He was equally passionate about both subjects, and his unlucky conversation partner wore the bored and mildly concerned expression that resulted from hearing about either. Whatever he was talking about, what he wasn’t doing was paying attention to Ronan Lynch, who reverted to his natural state in the absence of Gansey’s oversight, which was brooding, glaring, and petting his ghastly raven, Chainsaw. The girl closest to him, one of the psychics’ innumerable family members and new to the circus, edged nervously away from him. On his other side, completely unbothered, Blue Sargent was sporting the worst fashion choices Helen had ever seen- and that was saying a lot. 

The outfit, on top of the mounting noise level in the overcrowded room, contributed to Helen’s headache, although to be fair, the headache had begun when Helen had planned this meeting in anticipation of dealing with her coworkers. 

Persephone had turned her unnerving stare on an unsuspecting Adam Parrish, who looked entirely too tired to handle her. And Noah-what was his surname again?- seemed to flicker in and out of existence in a disconcerting and distracting manner. Maura looks up from her quibble with Calla to meet Helen’s gaze over the din. Helen knew from experience that while her unshakeable veneer of calm could fool a room of businessmen, a politician’s office, probably Congress itself, should she choose to test it, but she wasn’t working with businessmen or politicians. She was working with psychics and circus artists, the fringe of society, oddities of another world. Maura saw right through her. The psychic raised her voice. 

_“I need everyone to sit down!”_ The room dropped where they stood. Helen sent a grateful look her way. She took a deep breath. “Good morning, everyone.” There were at least three snorts at this opening. Helen ignored them. “As you all are aware, Dead Kings did very well, thanks to the hard work of everyone in the show and in management.” She allowed for a brief smattering of applause. 

“We want to create an experience even more extraordinary, even more shocking, immersive, impressive for this year’s audience. The motto of this company is Excelsior, or-” The company spoke in unison with her when she said, “Onward and upward!” Helen continued, “We have acquired new equipment, which Adam and I have spent the last day and a half testing and modifying to suit our needs,” said with a nod to Parrish, who half-raised his hand in recognition, “and the owners have finished this year’s budget, so the costume crew can go shopping at your leisure,” Blue and Persephone gained twin looks of determination; Helen did not want to be around for that venture, “and choreography can start up as soon as possible for the newest attraction, the show everyone wants to see this summer, the best thing since sliced bread-” The room collectively inhaled- “Are y’all ready for DECEPTION?!” Her colleagues ignored her slip into the Virginia accent and cheered as one. A new show meant new opportunities, and the concept of this year’s show was well-known to every member of the company in one way or another. Deception. Ganseys like herself and her brother were practiced in the art, seasoned warriors of the courtroom and the parlor and the circus arena. Lynches like Declan and Ronan deceived by omission, stony silence and icy gazes, obfuscating secrets no one could stay innocent knowing. And the psychics? They saw more truth than anyone, but they told the greatest lies in only revealing parts of the truth. It was a balance, like that between a performer and an audience, an individual and their company, calm and violence. A balance like that between dreams and reality.

_Times like these make me want to contact my brother again. His last letter was about that summer, too. I don't know why I was so surprised we had a ghost in our midst. Dick wasn't._

Gansey marked out each performer’s cues with colored flags. Adam’s were red, Ronan’s were green, Blue’s were… well, blue. She’d complained that it was too on the nose. Gansey had countered that it would just be confusing to use them for anyone else. Gansey’s sensibility had won out in the end, as it so often did. This was his place in the company- enforce order over the insignificant. This was his place in his family- a voice of reason for his eccentric father, a pillar of support for his driven mother, Helen’s serious and dependable brother. What was his place in history? His place in the world? Was he to be relegated to the equivalent of furniture forever? He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sense of a heavy gaze on the back of his neck. He looked up. Ronan was staring down from the practice jump as though he could see into Gansey’s thoughts. If he could, he was certainly judging them with no mercy. Ronan didn’t have patience for anything contemplative or self-pitying. Tearing his eyes away from Gansey’s, he flipped backward off the jump, twisting in the air, and landed just shy of the mark. 

Next up was Noah. Every one of HEPCO’s performers was trained in the art of vanishing, turning oneself into smoke at a moment’s notice, but Noah was the least corporeal of the team. If you weren’t paying attention, he’d fade out entirely. Gansey was paying attention, though, as he stepped up to the trapeze platform. His leap was perfectly timed, but as his hands hit the bar, unbelievably, they seemed to pass through it. The move didn’t look staged or practiced. Gansey shouted and ran forward as though he’d get there in time to cushion Noah’s fall. Ronan swore, but couldn’t descend from the rings to be of any help. Noah’s body twisted in midair, but he didn’t cry out. 

_"Helen, you were always the last word on morality in our family. Is it wrong that what I felt wasn’t fear, wasn’t concern, but excitement? That I wasn’t thinking of Noah, but the energy in the room instead?"_

“How is your spine not broken? How are you not shattered to shards of bone right now?” Ronan’s voice was harsh, but he looked paler than usual. Gansey looked shocked, like he was replaying the last moments in his mind. When the dust settled, Noah got up, and when he faced the other boys his face seemed different- older and younger and _not human_ all at once. “I told you. I’ve been dead for seven years.” Gansey felt chills run down his spine. Dead for seven years. Wasn’t that how he felt? Wasn’t that the feeling he ran from with every sleepless night, every pointless quest, every sold-out show? Noah’s deadness was easier to accept when it was the first realization since Blue, since Adam, since Ronan to make him feel alive. He reached down to offer Noah his hand, pulling him up into an embrace. Up close, Gansey could see Noah’s shaken expression hiding behind the bravado he always seemed to borrow from Ronan. He cursed himself internally. Noah wasn’t a realization, wasn’t an event, wasn’t a thing. Dead or alive, he was still a performer. Still a kid. Still their friend.

_"Noah's big reveal was only the beginning. I should have predicted the rest. A week later Mr. Gray showed up. Then all the others..."_

_Calla’s still mad I didn’t go with you. I think it’s because she wants fewer mouths to feed in this house, but if I’m honest with myself- honest like you were, and probably still are, you stubborn Gansey, you- she thinks I missed my chance at something better because of my pride. She’s right._

Blue was practicing aerial stunts in the new costume when Gansey reached the training tent. Calla called out, “One foot! Rotate! Right ring, ladder, trapeze, dismount.” Blue flipped through each command easily and swung off the trapeze with an aerial somersault, landing lightly. She looked winded, but confident. “Showoff,” Calla muttered. Turning to Gansey, Blue remarked, “That’s her way of saying ‘good job’.” 

“No, it’s my way of saying you’re showing off,” Calla replied cantankerously, shouldering past both teenagers to leave the training course. Once she’d left, Gansey said, “That was impressive, Jane.” Blue quirked an eyebrow and used one of the support ropes to get to the bench with towels and a water bucket. Okay, maybe she was showing off a little. “You should try it.” 

“I’m not an acrobat. Not like Ronan and Adam. Not like you.”

“You are like us. You’re too good at acting like you’re not.”

Blue slid off the rope and finished with a flourish on her toes, silently congratulating herself on not immediately falling flat on her face. Orla had laughed at the look of total surprise she’d sported in place of bruises the first time she’d perfected the move. Now, though, she took a sip from the ladle in the water bucket and followed Calla back outside, intent on going over the costume plan with Persephone during lunch. Something caught her eye, though- a tall, well-dressed something, tinged at his edges with an aura of gray. And he was talking to her mother.

Blue strained to hear his words. Whatever he said, it was enough to change Maura's whole demeanor. She smirked. Her smirk was different from Calla’s, which was self-satisfied and certain, and Orla’s, which made one feel the sudden urge to bathe. It was playful, challenging. But it didn’t come out when it was her turn to sell tickets or do a reading. Then she was all business. This was different. She’d sensed something in this man, and she was testing him. The last time she’d done that- well, she’d never done that, to Blue’s recollection. She didn’t engage with men who chased her with their eyes in grocery store lines and offered free drinks that weren’t really free, after all, encumbered as they came with expectations of reward. Maura told Blue that the lot of them together weren’t worth the time it took to flirt back to one of them. She was flirting now.

Her mother. Flirting. With a stranger.

Blue’s world reordered itself. 

The man’s eyes met Blue’s over Maura’s shoulder. Blue skittered into the trailer. Persephone was one step ahead of her, laying out sandwich ingredients on the tiny table and sharpening the kitchen knife to slice the bread.

“Already? I need to tell Ronan to stop messing with other people’s knives. All he does is dull them,” Blue snorted as a greeting.

“Have you met Maura’s second heartbreak yet?” Persephone asked in a tiny, distracted voice. Blue’s head snapped up. 

“The man outside? What do you mean, ‘heartbreak’? She doesn’t know him.”

“Not yet,” Persephone said sadly.

Maura’s laugh soared through the open window of the trailer, loud and joyous and unrestrained. Blue and Persephone exchanged a look.

“Yet.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just so y'all know, consistency is not my thing.

To Adam from Blue:

_ What would have happened if we’d tried for the Glendower favor when we found out Noah was a ghost? Gansey didn’t think we were close enough yet, and he was used to playing the long game with his Welsh king shenanigans, but that day felt like it was time.  _

_ We didn’t, though. We waited. We  _ planned _. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. _

“What, so we’re meant to wake a magical energy line, ask a favor from a royal corpse, and not get sucked into a time loop right after a performance?” Adam asked, ever the skeptic.

“It’s the only way to ensure there’s enough energy poured into the line to wake the spirit. We can keep each other in check.”

“The others will still be in the area. We can’t risk their lives for your quest. They didn’t sign on for this,” Adam replied fiercely.

“They’re psychics, Adam, they can feel this presence too. We’re closer than we’ve ever been. They know the risks as well as we do.”

“Adam’s right,” Blue said, her brows furrowed. She was looking at Gansey as though seeing him in a new light. “They didn’t ask for this. If we do it, we need to get them out of the way first.”

“Blue, it simply doesn’t make sense,” Adam said, glancing at Ronan, who rolled his eyes. Adam and Blue’s relationship was built almost entirely on mutual antagonism and mutual respect. Their communication was as easy between them as it was fraught with argument. Ronan and Blue had their own ongoing feud based on constantly one-upping each other in absurd feats of grandeur and childish jibes. Ronan and Adam- the time they spent together wasn’t empty of conversation, but talking to Adam gave Ronan an uncomfortable stomach-dropping feeling, not unlike the sensation of dropping from one aerial swing to another; it felt like flying and falling all at once. He kept his tone sharp and his eye contact sharper, always on the defense.

“When you’re President of Things That Make Sense, you can tell me what to do. Until then, you can keep your trap shut,” Blue retorted.

Adam opened his mouth to respond, and Gansey slipped from the beam with a gasp.

Ronan hooked an arm around Gansey’s waist and yanked him back. “Watch your feet,” he growled, low and close in Gansey’s ear. His heart beat erratically against Gansey’s shoulder blade until he released him. Adam had turned away, checking the ropes on the poles closest to him. Gansey’s misstep had alerted them to the true dangers of the world they’d trespassed into.

“This is your dream world,” Gansey remarked mildly. “Your mind isn’t a danger to me.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Ronan countered, the darkness of the arena seeping into his voice.

Blue began to rappel down the structure, Adam spotting her just as they would in practice. Gansey’s near miss had her reeling, and she wasn’t as alert as she should have been. Her knife clattered from her pocket, tumbling through the black stillness of the dream arena as though it, too, was a practiced performer. She turned her head to check behind her and cried out as something hit her shin. Ronan shouted, “Pull her back up, pull her back up!  _ There’s someone else in here _ .” He and Adam reeled Blue back up to the beam they’d all walked in on, Gansey pulling her over the edge. His hands were rough, not what she’d expect from a legacy son, but she didn’t have time to dwell on the realization. One by one, single file, they turned and ran for the opening in the tent flap.

Somewhere in the dark, a figure stirred, stretched its jaw. It had been a long time since the woman in the tomb had laughed like that.

To Gansey from Blue:

_ I always wondered why you weren’t worse off after that night. Did you know we’d woken her? Noah knew. He was afraid of her, skittish. He could tell through the ley line what we’d done. Could you? _

“There’s someone else in here.” Jordan would remember those words for the rest of her life. Hennessy never talked in her sleep. Sometimes she cried, silent tears Jordan would wipe away as gently as she could, cursing the universe for this fresh hell. Sometimes she screamed, and that was worse. But never complete sentences. She was barely this coherent in the waking world, unless she was berating some poor sod on the street for crimes unknown.

Hennessy thought she must still have been dreaming, although this wasn’t the usual nightmare. Even her dream self was drained, exhaustion weighing her down. Fatigue was dangerous in this arena- a circus show, why was she dreaming of a circus?

“This is your dream world,” someone’s voice wound its way through the dark to her ears. Who else was here? Why did she suddenly have a dream world? She’d never encountered anything like this before. “It won’t hurt me.”

Well, that couldn’t be true. Nothing Hennessy dreamt was safe. “Don’t be so sure,” another voice replied. It was coming from above her. She hadn’t entered a total void after all- a set of rungs hung from a suspended system of poles and ropes. She could feel Jordan tugging her back, trying to wake her up, but she shook it off. This wasn’t the same dream. She wouldn’t manifest a copy this time. She grabbed the first rung and pulled herself into the maze.

“A tree and a nightmare, what a pair, climbing in the darkness, hm, coming to free Gwen?” the muttered words came from directly in front of Hennessy. “P-please… I have been stuck here so long… kind girl, help me,” the woman before her pleaded. Looking closer, Hennessy could see her hands were bound with rope, her face emaciated and eyes bulging. Hennessy would do anything to get the pathetic sight out of her face. She cast around for something to cut the woman free. When a small switchblade fell into her outstretched hand, she blinked. This couldn’t be one of her dreams. Nothing she’d ever tried to summon had manifested. Nothing but her dead mother and more girls and more misery, every time. Hennessy slashed at the woman’s bonds. This time was different. She wasn’t helpless anymore.

Except then she was, because the woman had her by the wrists with one hand, other arm reaching up for something- a weapon? A dream?

“There’s someone else here.”

Hennessy focused on that. She couldn’t wake up and she couldn’t escape her captor any other way. She wrenched her body to the side, pitching the woman toward the edge of the narrow platform they stood on. She released Hennessy’s hands to catch herself, and Hennessy shot into the air like she was born to it. She climbed after the sound of the voices. This might as well happen.

Gansey to Blue:  _ Your family felt more like family than mine ever did, Jane. _

Blue to Gansey:  _ Our family. _

“Gentlemen! Attention please! We did bring someone back.” Blue gestured at the girl standing just inside the tent flap, looking scared and hiding it badly. She did not look like a Welsh king.

“I brought myself,” the girl rasped.

“More like the cat dragged you in,” Ronan sniped.

“Ronan,” Adam and Gansey sighed in unison. The stranger drew herself up to her full height, bristling.

“Both of you, stop. I am going to get Calla. Nobody kill each other until I get back. Understood?” Blue glared at all of them. Even the stranger nodded.

Gansey stepped forward. The girl tensed, wary. “My name is Gansey,” he said slowly. “You’re at the main tent of HEPCO. Uh… it’s 1929.”

“I know what year it is. I’m lost, not concussed.”

“Well, that’s… er, that’s good. What’s your name?”

“Hennessy.”

“Just Hennessy?”

“That’s all there is.”

Blue to Adam: _Hennessy wouldn’t have been dreaming on the line. The Moderators wouldn’t have noticed the disturbance. Gwen wouldn’t have woken up. You’d tell me that “woulda coulda shoulda never helped anyone” if you were here. I miss you, Adam. I miss all of us, the circus, the shows. We both wanted out so badly. Neither of us looked back. Do you miss it too? Did I make the right choice?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...yeah. okay the TW for murder begins applying here. if this will affect you negatively, I'd skip Carmen's whole POV. I'll put a summary of what happens for her character development in the end notes. stay safe <3

Jordan to Ronan:  _ She hated it, at first. It was the only way to keep us safe and she knew that, but it was like giving a kitten a bath. I didn’t hate it, though. Calla woke her up for me, when she’d followed you all back to the circus. You and K taught her to dream. Blue gave her… something. Something solid that wasn’t us. Before she brought us to you, we were on the brink of falling apart.  _

Hennessy thought about running away a thousand times, walking up to the trailer door as though she was walking to her execution. But, she supposed, this  _ was _ running away. And if she didn’t, it was her girls who would face certain execution. She knocked on the door as though in a trance, flinching back when the door creaked open. A cloud of pale hair loomed out at her, but the rest of the woman was several inches below Hennessy’s sight. 

“Do come in, dear,” the woman said in a small voice, “Hennessy, was it?” 

Hennessy’s eyes widened. She thought she could run far away from anyone who knew the name Jordan Hennessy. She’d left all those people behind in London. Even if K had known who all six of them really were, he didn’t work for the circus. Right? The pale woman was staring, mildly concerned. Hennessy remembered to speak. “How did you know I was coming today?” 

“You applied already, didn’t you? No? I must be getting confused. Time, you know, very…” she didn’t bother adding any adjectives to the statement.

Hennessy cleared her throat when the woman didn’t focus back up. “Erm...ma’am, what’s your name?” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Maura usually handles these things, says Calla and I put people off. I’m Persephone.” She stretched out her hand to Hennessy tentatively, as though making sure people actually did things like handshakes. Hennessy took it. 

“I’m Hennessy. I’d like to apply for a position with this company. I don’t have any references for you, but we’ve got plenty of experience, and we’re available for any job you’ve got.” 

“We, dear?” Persephone said. 

Hennessy’s heart stuttered. She had to stop being so careless, it was how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place. “I have five associates.”

“How old are you? Twenty-five, seventeen, or… no! Twenty-one?”

“…Twenty-one,” Hennessy answered slowly. Persephone looked quietly delighted. 

“Scaring guests, Auntie?” A willowy young woman with deep caramel skin strutted into the trailer. She looked Hennessy up and down with a disinterested gaze, like Hennessy was another part of the furniture in the trailer.

“Don’t be an ass, Orla,” came the voice of another girl who entered on her heels. Hennessy had to look very far down to see its source this time. “Welcome to our humble abode, miss…”

“Hennessy,” Hennessy answered cautiously. Four women in the trailer seemed to be a strain on its capacity, but the other three moved around each other with ease. Hennessy recognized the mannerisms from her apartment with the girls, reaching over and bumping into and talking to eight other bodies all at once in a well-known dance. Half a memory, half a dream.

“Blue, will you show her around?” Persephone asked.

“Good luck, little cousin. This one’s trouble,” the taller girl- Orla- interjected before Blue could respond.

Hennessy let her smile spill over her face, slow like molasses over Boston, an unnatural disaster waiting to swallow everyone in its path. Her smile was the 

“Welcome to HEPCO, where the daily risk of death is astronomical. The chances of Ronan killing you make up for half of that,” Blue began.

“Damn right, maggot,” the angry-looking Irish one chimed in as he passed by.

“Can it, Lynch, I’m doing the welcome speech. Anyway, if you want a tarot reading or some truly horrendous medicinal tea, it’s all free, go to my illustrious mother or any of my genuinely disturbed aunts, just don’t go to my cousin Orla because you’ll find yourself sexually confused and mildly infuriated.” Hennessy stared and Brooklyn whistled. “That’s her advertisement and my warning,” Blue clarified. “The costume department is run by myself and Persephone, your whole… act, here, it makes things much easier for us, really- we only need one set of measurements from you. Equipment is Adam, Calla, and Helen, which is the strangest combination of personalities you’ll ever see in your life. Sleeping arrangements are on a night-by-night basis and depend on your level of comfort with the outdoors and proximity to Ronan’s raven. Her name’s Chainsaw. Say hi, Chainsaw.” 

“ _ Krek! _ ”

“Don’t be rude. Say hi,” Blue scolded, although the girls were still recovering from the sudden shock of the emission of sound from the bird Hennessy’d assumed was stuffed.

The nightmare parakeet let out a burbling sound that raised hairs on the back of Hennessy’s neck. Trinity took a step backward; Hennessy could see Jordan take her hand.

“Richard Campbell Gansey the Third-” Blue gave a theatrical sweep of her hand. The man in question gave a pained smile, extending a hand. “Please, just Gansey.” 

“Just Hennessy,” she introduced herself again, shaking it.

Blue continued, “Gansey here is in charge of- well, his main job is to keep a muzzle on Lynch, but he’s also our ringmaster. Runs the show. The big cheese.”

“I’ve been apprised of your talents and abilities. We will weave you into our web yet, Madam Hennessy.”

Blue rolled her eyes. “Yes, he’s always like that.”

“The caliber of artists in our entourage is varied. We will not ask you to perform skills for which you are unprepared,” Gansey was entirely in earnest, but Adam could see the moment when Hennessy’s face soured from ‘tolerantly listening’ to ‘affronted’. He wondered if that was how it looked on his face when Gansey acted like that. “You don’t think I’m up to it,” Hennessy accused flatly. “I sincerely doubt the ability of anyone to perform high-intensity acrobatics when one is running on so little rest.” Gansey replied. Adam sighed. “Gansey, it’s a circus, she can do what she wants and it’s her own fault if she gets hurt. Hennessy, he’s not going to stop mothering you.” None of them seemed very happy with this assessment. 

“ _ Adam _ could be more  _ civil _ if he tried, but don’t hold that against him,” Blue tossed over her shoulder as she led the girls through the tent. Hennessy thought she could hear Adam begin to mutter something as they walked away. “I am being perfectly…” 

Jordan began asking questions, and Blue lit up at the chance to explain her home to an interested party. Hennessy might have smiled if she had the energy. Jordan would be safe with this girl. Jordan could be friends with this girl. How long had it been since the closest thing she’d had to a friend had been her Market customers?

“And that’s the crop,” Blue finished. They’d circled back around to the first trailer while Hennessy had zoned out. She’d have to rely on the girls for directions. Hopefully the confusion around having seven identical people around would cover her mistakes. Relying on her girls as her safety net was uncomfortably familiar.

Carmen Farooq-Lane would tell you that missions for the Moderators went very smoothly, thank you. They were professional, tidy, and low casualty. She’d tell you that while she didn’t exactly enjoy the job she did, she recognized its necessity and could even appreciate the level of order and organization put into each mission. Everything carefully premeditated, not a hair out of place, just like her. Missions couldn’t go better if she planned them herself.

She’d be lying.

“A little help here, princess?” Ramsay snarled as he grappled with the Zed they’d dragged from his treacherous slumber at one in the morning. Carmen couldn’t keep the disgust from her face as she twisted her fingers into a spot between the Zed’s neck and shoulder that sent him to a limp heap on the ground. Ramsay was unusually sloppy for a Moderator, brutal and messy, obsessed with glory and careless with his violence. He couldn’t even dispatch one Zed without acquiring some minor injury he’d undoubtedly brag about for weeks on end. He was revolting.

She gave a pointed glance toward the pistol in his hand. “Don’t want to get your hands dirty?” he taunted. Carmen raised an eyebrow but ignored him. “Let’s go,” she said tersely, turning on her heel and exiting the room. She took the first steps downstairs calmly, but the night began to catch up with her. The annoyance of being paired with JJ Ramsay on a mission mingled unpleasantly with the stale odor permeating the Zed’s hovel, and the painful combination added to the headache pounding behind her eyes from the garish colors of the walls and the shimmering haze in the stagnant air. The atmosphere’d been pressing on Carmen since she entered and had to suppress a recoil, and now, out of Ramsay’s direct sight, she let herself recognize each piece of sensory input contributing to her current state. When the gunshot rang out, Carmen heard it as though underwater; it was a rippling, faraway sound. It didn’t feel real. None of this felt real.

She waded out into the fresh night air, resisting the urge to clutch at her head. She wasn’t some fainting maiden, and she certainly didn’t need to display any kind of weakness in front of Ramsay.

Or Lock. The man was standing in the middle of the street, transport for the three of them parked behind him in the form of a [car brand for the time w/e]. He must have pulled up while Ramsay was shooting, otherwise Carmen would have heard him.

_ Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. _

The body in the bag hit every porch stair on the way to the ground, where it landed in a pitiful heap, seeping blood. “Another one bites the dust,” Ramsay belched.

Carmen took the bag and dragged it to the hole she’d dug in the back plot of land. She used the strain in her muscles as she buried it to ground her, centering her focus in the present. She needed her wits about her to face Lock.

Of course the first thing he said threw her for a loop.

“Do you know what ley lines are?” 

  
Carmen nodded slowly to hide her surprise. “I’m aware of the concept.”  _ Nathan _ came back to her so clearly it was as though he spoke in her ear, over the sound of Lock dumbing down the topic to her. The Moderators had known her brother was a dreamer. It seemed they didn’t know how much work he’d done in ley line research. It seemed they didn’t know how much she’d done, either. 

_ “Carmen, come check out these readings. Carmen, come with me to Peru. Carmen, there’s a telegram here from a British chap; do you know who Roger Malory is?”  _

It had been their hobby since they were teens; it was their life for two years. They’d gone everywhere together, picked up their lives and moved so many times Carmen didn’t know which way was North. Nathan had connections in every country, every town they visited. He wanted to chase every possibility, track down the foggiest leads, and he was willing to do anything—barter anything—for more information. Nathan had been the passion of their team, Carmen the precision. She’d been good at which clues were useless, which information vendors would sell out. She’d kept them going in logical directions, Nathan had kept them  _ going _ altogether. Of course she knew ley lines. She knew ley lines better than she’d known her own brother. Sometimes she thought she knew them better than she knew herself.

“Do you understand all that?”

Carmen blinked. “Yes. What is this to do with the Zeds?”

“A one-track mind. I appreciate your focus on our goal, Carmen. The circus travels along ley lines. It is thought that the Zeds in their employ draw strength from ley energy. We’ve been monitoring energy spikes along the American lines for activity we can link to the circus. Yesterday, we hit the jackpot. There was a disturbance on the one of the midwestern lines. We detected at least two Zeds and a few other presences, as though someone were using the line’s energy to travel in a dream.” Lock was showing the barest signs of excitement, the most emotion she’d seen him display since he’d recruited her.

“So the Moderators can track them like this? Are the lines able to be tapped?” Her brows furrowed. This would either make tracking Zeds much easier or much, much more complicated. She knew, perhaps better than any of the other Moderators, how little one could trust the ley line.

“With your skills and this new resource, we can shut them down in a month. It’ll be over, Carmen.”

It would be over. She could put this behind her at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carmen and Ramsay kill a dreamer (Zed to them), and Lock informs Carmen that the Moderators can track HEPCO and dreamers through the ley lines. Carmen has a flashback to her past, when she and her brother studied the ley lines, but she doesn't tell Lock what she knows.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyy let's fall off the face of the earth for two months how bout that. anyway i'm back and it'll all be up sooooooon pinky promise

Outside Helen’s equipment truck, the disaster twins had set up the bike ramps. Adam’s steps faltered. “Not today, guys…” but it was half-hearted. Ronan and Noah were relentless on days like this. The sun was out, they’d been cooped up in the trailers for too long, and all they wanted to do, it seemed, was defy the laws of physics at very high speeds for no discernible reason. Adam just cracked his knuckles and headed over, picking up his bike from where Ronan had unceremoniously tossed it in the dust. “My efforts cost money, Lynch, and if these get damaged because of you I’m sending the circus’s bill your way.” 

“Everything’s damaged, Parrish,” Ronan retorted, “and contrary to popular belief, it’s not all my fault.” He started warming up. Noah looked delighted to join. Adam rolled his eyes and fell into sync with the other two, picking up their old routines and weaving them together. Their part of the show was different with every performance. Something new for every night. They were kings of new kingdoms every time they marked a new arena with their tire tracks. 

_ Well, I suppose we all accepted what was to come when Gwenllian showed up. Anywhere else, she’d have been thrown in a prison- jail, or confinement, or worse. But she felt like a missing piece of our pie just like Hennessy, just like Declan, just like Mr. Gray. As strange as she was, she made sense. Ma’s costume two sizes too big, that night in the dream arena, six girls with one face… Gwenllian. _

Blue headed to the trailer with a mountain of fabric in her arms. She itched to get in one more hour in the tent. She was the best of her cousins at seamstress work, but a whole day without the adrenaline of the wires and swings bored her to tears. Distracted, it was no surprise she didn’t see the looming figure standing just inside the trailer until it tapped her on the shoulder.

“!” She dropped everything she was holding and scrambled back.

Maura and Persephone were at her side immediately. “Well. This was unexpected.” 

“You don’t SAY, Ma! Who is she?” 

“Oh! The costume will fit her.” Persephone gasped, about a minute late.

Mother and daughter stared in noncomprehension. “Your mistake, Maura.” The sleeve of the costume in question flopped down the heap of clothing between the psychics and the stranger.

_ Seeing her like this… she was almost happy. She deserved that. I was so stupid to think it would last, that she could have this forever. _

It had been so long since Jordan had worked with real performance equipment. If she’d had her own life, she would have stayed with the dance troupe in London, learning classical ballet instead of this. Her teachers- Hennessy’s teachers, they weren’t hers; nothing was hers in this shared, six-part life- would be horrified by this. They didn’t approve of sensational entertainment, thought it was too close to  _ that  _ kind of performance art. Had Hennessy been their actual pupil, she’d have dared them to deny her. Jordan, though, soaked up instruction like a sponge. They were different like that, and they were different like this too- Hennessy thought about stepping off the trapeze platform and falling. Jordan thought about stepping off and flying.

_ “I’m the second. Second in my family, second sleeper in the ether, second to arrive. Witch-women, you know the importance of threes! One more after me, one more inconvenient truth.” Gwenllian’s riddles still ring in my head. The girls first, then her, then… him. _

“May I speak to the individual in charge here?” The group of teenagers looks up in unison. Greenmantle never wants to deal with young adults. Give him older men and women, back-broken and destitute, used to bending under an unforgiving hand, or the very young, impressionable enough to train into pliable assistants, children eager to please and desperate to avoid his brutal punishments. They were the easiest to manage. Expensive to feed and clothe, though. He wondered how the circus stayed in business with this many young employees. It was likely some of their income was derived from Fairy Market dealings. A pity he could no longer approach them from there.

“I’ll go find Maura,” one of the boys said, heading off. The rest of them stayed clustered several feet away, regarding him with suspicion. He liked that. It was just close enough to fear.

Losing his membership at the market had been an unfortunate inconvenience, although the satisfaction from crushing each and every one of Padma Mark’s fingers (and then her nose) under his foot had nearly been worth it. He still had contacts inside, of course, but the atmosphere there really was nothing like he’d seen anywhere else. It was meant to be experienced in person. So was the circus, he supposed. 

The boy returned with a woman in tow. She shook his hand with no enthusiasm. He returned the energy. Piper would hate her, he thought. “Colin Greenmantle, Inspector of Entertainment for this fair city. And you are?”

“Maura Sargent, Director of Events for HEPCO. How may we help you?”

“I’ve been mandated to assess the safety of this org-” He stopped, scrubbed a hand over his eyes. It couldn’t be. Shadows from the Market were meant to stay there.

“Mr. Greenmantle,” Declan Lynch greeted him blandly, looking as unflappable as ever.

“You know this man?” the woman (Mara?) asked.

“We’ve met. The last managerial convention, yes?” Declan lied. Greenmantle was entirely unsure what a managerial convention was, or whether such an unimaginably tiresome concept could ever come to fruition, but he picked his jaw up off the grass. “Of course, of course. I was unaware you worked with HEPCO. It’s been some time since we’ve run into each other.”

Declan nodded. His eyes seemed to slide away from Greenmantle’s subtle searching look. He supposed the only rightful place for Niall’s brats was a circus. Or a prison. But Declan, the eldest, guardian to his father’s secrets- Greenmantle had never associated him with such flamboyant folk. He raised his eyebrows but continued to- Mary, wasn’t it- “Shall we?” She showed him into the first tent.

“That seemed off, right?” Blue asked when Greenmantle had left. “You are perhaps predisposed to suspicion toward outsiders, Jane.” “What are you saying?” Blue narrowed her eyes. “Only that your family is very… insular, and I find no reason to immediately consign this man to the category of distrusted persons.”

She glared at him. “Who talks like that, Gansey? Who?” 

He furrowed his brows, quizzical. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“He’s trouble. I know it.”

Declan Lynch seemed to think so. He pulled Maura aside and they argued in whispers for a long minute. Declan never asked for anything from HEPCO, and that in the end

Hennessy sighed as she fell asleep, if not relaxed enough to rest in peace, she was at least too tired to strain to stay awake. This is how it goes: Jordan with her eyes on the pocket watch for five minutes. She doesn’t allow herself to break concentration. She passes it to June, who gives it to Madox. Jordan, entrenched in the hyper-focused state she uses to forge art, let everything else go for five minutes. She didn’t apply brainpower to anything other than the tick of the second hand across the unforgiving face in her palm. None of the girls let themselves get distracted. They couldn’t afford to lose track of time.

Ronan observed the process through half-lidded eyes. Twenty minutes at a time. Was that all? When the watch reached Jordan again, she lifted Hennessy’s head off her shoulder, waking her up. Hennessy was tense at first, but it seemed she was too tired to hold herself upright, sagging back against the seat. She stayed awake for another minute or two, blinking hard every few seconds when her head started to droop forward. One by one, the other girls began to fall asleep as well.

Jordan picked up each shift of watching the clock, diligently keeping her eyes on it and waking Hennessy back up. Every time. Hennessy got perhaps twenty minutes at a time, but Jordan got no sleep at all the whole night as the train rumbled on. Jordan noticed Ronan’s eyes on her. Duty was keeping Jordan awake, the responsibility of six other lives resting on her slumped shoulders. It was something else keeping Ronan up. They watched each other subtly throughout the night. There was nothing to say that justified breaking this silence. Insomniacs slipped into a realm of their own when the rest of the world snatches rest. Different rules governed this world when the wakeful stand sentry over the dreams of those untroubled by nocturnal demons. They can do nothing but watch, pace, curse their souls for uselessness. Questions swung heavy in the dark quiet; they meant something else here, so Jordan and Ronan did not ask. 

~

Fifty miles away, Carmen Farooq-Lane struggled not to ask Lock what the hell was going on as he saddled her with another Visionary. She didn’t want one. She’d clearly dropped the ball with Parsifal. “It’s good to meet you, Liliana.” Carmen used all the poise she hadn’t learned from her distracted mother, absent father, and feral older brother to greet the newcomer. Visionaries were easily put off, and if she had to have one with her, she didn’t want to create an enemy of her partner from the start.

“You as well.” The Visionary’s voice was musical, and Carmen felt a strange sense of calm wash over her at the sound.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Locke said, picking up his briefcase and backing out of the room.

Once he was gone, Liliana spoke again. “You remind me of someone I knew once. She worked for a circus,” she said thoughtfully. Carmen raised an eyebrow. She hoped she didn’t remind anyone of a circus. She’d worked so hard to establish a persona that reflected cool, collected competence. She avoided spectacle at all costs. Even before Nathan. Liliana smiled softly.

“The Moderators are a circus of their own, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Carmen said cautiously. Could Locke be testing her? Put her in a room with this disarmingly peaceful woman and wait for her loyalty to crack?

“That’s alright. Not a lot of people do,” Liliana sighed.

“...Right. Are you comfortable disclosing your latest information or visions to me? Anything I don’t know.” Carmen was still with the Moderators because she was good at finding those who didn’t want to be found. Whatever test this was, she could pass, as long as she had data to work with.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FOUR

_ You know what I miss? Team meetings. My favorite was the one right after K showed up. You and I were the only ones without a stake in his arrival, and I remember trading looks with you across the room as the tension mounted higher and higher… _

_ -Adam to Blue _

Hennessy shot out of her seat. “Kavinsky’s not a dirtbag. He’s an  _ asshole _ .” The assembled company cast concerned glances her way, but Ronan looked at her, really looked at her, with something other than hostility for the first time. 

“She’s right.” He didn’t elaborate, but the words fell heavy over the table between them. If they can’t stand for the same thing, Hennessy thinks, they can stand against this menace together. For forgers and dreamers and wounded creatures, that can be the same thing.

It’s an expression Ronan hadn’t seen on Kavinsky’s face- regret. It didn’t look good on him. He didn’t back down from Hennessy’s murderous glare, though. “It was nothing personal,” he said defiantly, setting his mouth scornfully. “If you can’t do business, the Market will eat you alive.” He sounded like he was quoting someone. 

Hennessy sneered. “First rule of the Market is there are no rules. Second rule is you don’t call the goddamn magic police on your associates.” Ronan was immediately on Hennessy’s side. 

K held up his hands in a placating gesture, but Hennessy wasn’t having it. Ronan felt two hands wrap around his wrists. Gansey on one side, Adam on the other. He must have had his fighting face on, the one that put steel in Gansey’s tone and something different in Adam’s eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Adam was moving equipment with Helen across the field from where Hennessy and Ronan are standing. It was too far away to hear voices clearly, but Ronan could imagine Adam’s southern drawl as he made polite conversation. It’s a voice he never used with Ronan. Adam’s muscles flexed under the cotton of his shirt, and suddenly Ronan was very glad he was standing far away. He almost forgot he wasn't alone, but Hennessy snorted derisively at him. “Got it bad, don’t you?” 

“Buzz off.” His eyebrow could cut a man in two.

“Back to business, Lynch,” she said, undeterred. “I learn something new, he learns something new.”

“Dick’s not going to like this,” he warned, in a tone that suggested that while Richard Gansey would not be entertained, Ronan Lynch would be, very much so.

_Even in actual death, I have never felt closer to death than I did that day. -Gansey_

Ronan’s arm looped around his shoulders promised a world of danger. His other hand gesticulated animatedly as he explained, “Crash course in acrobatics, one time only! First rule: don’t hesitate. Limber up and go for it. Don’t think about how far you could fall.”

“I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” he balked when he saw the height of the scaffolding, Blue in her practice clothes- a torn middy shirt she’d stuffed into boys’ trousers- peering down at him. He couldn’t tell from the ground, but he could’ve sworn her eyes twinkled.

“Come on, Gansey. There’s a first time for everything!” 

“If I can do it with no sleep and half the druggist’s back room in my system, you can do it.” 

“That is not reassuring,” Gansey protested as Ronan dragged him to the scaffolding. Blue gave him an encouraging smile as he hauled himself to the top. He made the mistake of glancing into her eyes and nearly lost his footing entirely. 

“I’m coming, Jane.” 

“Still not my name.” 

He reached the top. Blue began to ready the harness- “Only the best for you, Mr. President”- before a shadow fell over her face. “What’s wrong?” 

“How do you feel about going _without_ a harness?” He paled. Chainsaw’s croak rang out in the silence. She was perched on the bar of Blue’s trapeze, swinging slightly, head cocked toward him. Sometimes Gansey wondered if Ronan had unknowingly dreamt into her the gaze of the ley line, the uncanny pull he felt whenever he unearthed a new discovery. The sense that his life mattered as long as he lived in the moments when he felt it. The call of the void, or something more? Kings stretched their hands over centuries to shake his, men and women of powers beyond stood by his side. They all felt it. Chainsaw was another player in the game, as much as himself. Maybe more. And now she dared him to take the step into nothingness and trust that he’d land in one piece. 

“Is this thing safe?” he asked weakly. Why did he always get roped into recklessness? 

“Safe as life!” Blue called back, snatching her bar and leaping into the air, unseating Chainsaw. The raven soared in spirals, calling reproof at Blue. Gansey remembered what Ronan had told him. No hesitation. If you fret about it, you’ll never do it. Don’t think about how far you could fall.

_That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. -Hennessy_

“The ambition is not to use the technique that we know. The ambition is to discover new technique,” Blue chirped at him. She sounded like she was quoting someone.

“Don’t throw my words back at me,” Gansey retorted, but he was smiling. It was nice, Hennessy thought, in a pathetic kind of way.

~

The show that night was spectacular. A little _too_ spectacular.

_“Make way for the Raven King_

_Rex Corvi_

_Rex Corvi”_

Chainsaw was up there among the other birds, soaring in their midst as they swooped and dived in a shifting mass over the crowd, who oohed and aahed in appreciation. (Well. Some shrieked in terror, but that really wasn’t Ronan’s focus.) Ronan raised a hand, hoping against hope that the birds would respond to it. They swept by him in a cloud of dark feathers and savage claws. His raven let loose a triumphant call as she did a barrel roll right under his nose. _Cheeky little puke._ “Rex Corvi!” Ronan shouted over the din of flapping wings. He could wield this force. He could take control for once, be the Gansey in the room. Be the king. The ravens swept out of the entrance to the tent at his direction. Ronan’s heart sang.

The audience settled down. It was one entity with a thousand heads, two thousand eyes, every one trained, now, on Ronan. It wasn’t every tiresome person who’d ever had the misfortune of approaching him with good intentions. It wasn’t the cheers that came at the wrong time every performance, making him strain to keep the rhythm of the show from going off-kilter. It was just another monster, like Lindenmere, like the night horrors. Like K or Hennessy. 

Like him.

He smirked at them.

Kavinsky’s pack smirked with him. They seemed to thrive on the energy, the chaos of it all. When the music cued him, K pulled both arms from behind him in a flourish. His poles of kerosene rags blazed. The world was one-half fire and one-half pale, scarred skin glowing in the flames. The other boys fanned out behind him, brandishing their own torches. Each light they held sent up a different colored tongue of fire. Lavender, emerald, crystal. Jiang threw his torch to K, who caught it in his outstretched hand, flipping his own between his teeth. Ronan watched, transfixed, as he rose to an impeccable pointe, catching another torch and curling it under his bent knee while his other leg supported his weight. Swan tossed the fourth torch high. It spun dizzyingly in the air. 

Watching it felt like his father’s voice weaving dangerous tales by firelight, watching Adam scry into nothingness, riding in Gansey’s impossible car. Out of time, out of dreams, between the reality he knew and the barely-tangible wisps of the one he longed for in his most secret moments. One where the heroes always won, always fell in love with the right people, always lived.

He hadn’t told anyone about the offer.  _ Do you want another piece of the action. Do you want something more. _

He hadn’t told anyone he was joining Kavinsky’s act.

Kavinsky gripped Ronan’s arms and it was nothing like Adam’s trust in him, nothing like Adam’s gaze bringing him back down from the peak of the performance in an exhilarating swoop, nothing like Adam at all. This felt like gasoline on fire, like Ronan’s nightmares. Their bodies flipped through the dusty sunlight entering the top of the practice tent and K’s breathing became Ronan’s heartbeat. 

He thought,  _ it’s easy to fall. _ He thought,  _ this isn’t the freedom of trapeze, this is the cage of K’s knife smile, this is a trap. _

They’re circling each other now. Ronan is hanging on to breath, hanging on to anything that feels like real life. K moves like a dream creature. As they swung closer, near the last move of the set, Ronan looked over Kavinsky’s bony shoulder. Gansey’s face was white as a sheet.

~

“What do you want?” Gansey never sounded like that. Not to anyone.

“What I always want,” Kavinsky gloated, “To be entertained.”

~

“Ronan, stand down,” Gansey commanded. Adam didn’t think he’d do it for a moment, but he let go of Kavinsky’s shoulders, shoving him back and nearly off-balance before circling around to Gansey’s right side. Gansey spared him a burning look, and his body language indicated he wanted to put hands on Ronan too, but he just invited himself into Kavinsky’s space instead, albeit more elegantly than Ronan had. K raked his slimy gaze all over Gansey. Gansey’s attention made a person feel greater, magnified, more. K’s was weaponized.

“I’m sure we will be able to discuss our differences on the issue in a manner befitting the civilized,” Gansey said. A gracious king to an unruly subject. Kavinsky’s pack growled, sensing it, as they spaced themselves out. Adam shared a glance with Blue and Ronan as they matched them step for step, forming a ring around respective warlords. In his periphery, Adam could see Noah flicker into existence. K and Gansey, though, had eyes only for each other, trusting their respective courts to back them up. 

Adam thought this should feel demeaning, like he’d been reduced to mere muscle and presence, proof of Gansey’s influence, Gansey’s ownership, but it didn’t. He grew larger when he stood behind Gansey like this. It wasn’t ownership, it was trust Gansey put in him and Ronan and Blue and Noah. To hold the line. Protect their kingdom against the usurpers. 

K’s laughter is harsh and incredulous. He addresses his boys, “He says they matter. What, pint-size, trailer trash, and wannabe thug? Not to mention the _ghost_ . You don’t matter, you run a _freak show_.” 

Blue bristles to Adam’s left. She keeps it in check, though- all of them, even Kavinsky’s pack, are hanging on Gansey’s next words.

_Gansey told me later that he regretted that night. I never did. I used to be jealous of it, the hold he had on you, but that night I was… grateful. He kept you on our side. On my side. -Adam_

_K was too much of a threat. I wasn’t even there when he confronted Gansey, but we all knew it. -Jordan_

She knew exactly what would happen to their merry little band if the scumbag peached to the Moderators, too. He may be chasing Ronan’s dubious affections for now, but he held no love for them. She needed to talk to the only person standing in K’s way. The only one with a ruthless mind, like hers. She needed to talk to Adam.

_Hennessy never saw that side of me. Madox was the angry one, June was the smart one, Hennessy herself was the disaster with a thousand casualties. I was supposed to be responsible. Forgiving. Merciful._

_Ha._

Jordan found Adam in Mr. Dittley’s barn, kneeling by the engine of his tractor. Without looking up, he said, “Hold this, will you,” and passed her a wrench. She took it and joined him on the worn floorboards. Adam fished around in the bowels of the tractor for a minute, caught hold of something, and held out his hand again. Bemused, she put the wrench in it. After fixing whatever needed to be tightened, he straightened up and began to stretch, at which point he froze, realizing who she was. 

“I’m so sorry, I thought you were Ronan or Gansey, I wouldn’t have- done, er, that-” 

Jordan smiled. She could see why it was impossible not to like Adam. He wasn’t surly like Ronan, or carefully fake like Declan, or overly magnanimous like Gansey. His presence made you comfortable before he even said anything. “It’s okay. I can help while we talk.” 

“No, I’m just about finished here. Should be up and running better than before, if I know my engines, which I do.” Adam’s confidence wasn’t showmanship. It was quieter, yet it fit just as well into the circus dynamic. He walked to the stairs leading to the loft of the barn, motioning her to follow. They sit down side by side. 

“You and I both know there’s no chance in hell all of this is a coincidence.” 

Adam nodded. 

“I don’t know about Ronan, but Hennessy isn’t the most… responsible about her own life.” Adam snorted. From what Jordan had seen of Ronan, it seemed he wasn’t either. 

Jordan took a deep breath. “How do we keep them safe?”

“Whether they want us to or not?”

“Yeah.”

“Stand between them and Kavinsky. Stand between them and the hit man. Stand between them and the creepy psychic world they’re dipping into every time they close their eyes.”

“Do the impossible,” Jordan quotes.

Adam looks her dead in the eyes. They understand each other. “Exactly.”

_I’m too good at hiding things from her. Always have been. She never looked for it, back then._

Hennessy wrapped her arms around herself. She seemed so much smaller out here, against a backdrop of endless sky meeting endless waves of grain. Jordan wanted to hug her, or put her six feet under. Instead, she broke the silence. “Is this where you go when you dream?” 

“What, to a field in East Bumblefuck?” 

“No, just… somewhere that feels like this.” Quiet. Dark. Suspended, as though they’d stepped out of reality and here in this timeless space nothing was concrete, nothing was corporeal. Somewhere that felt like the open ocean, like certain booths at the Fairy Market, like the moment before the curtain rose. Hennessy looked at Jordan for a long moment. Implicit understanding hung in the space between them. 

“Do you think any one of you would come from anywhere as nice as this?” ...and she was back to being Hennessy. Jordan accepted the change in tone, however, and replied, “No, I came from somewhere much fancier. Gansey’s parents’ house.” 

“The Ritz.” 

“Buckingham-fucking-Palace.” They laughed. 

~

All showings had sold out by ten in the morning. The psychics took shifts in the tent one after another, a line of eager fortune-seekers trailing out to the nearby lake, where Ronan had taken it upon himself to start a water fight. Hennessy watched, the sun burning away awareness of her fatigue, as Blue went under the surface with a shout. Ronan threw his head back and laughed maniacally until he lost his footing as well. Blue emerged from the scummy water grinning in triumph. She waved Hennessy over. “C’mon, help me trounce this loser.” 

Hennessy hesitated. She’d just met these people. She’d proven to spell only trouble for all of them, and it was clear there was little trust between them. 

But Ronan said,

“Wanna bet, maggot?”

Hennessy and Blue exchanged twin sharklike smiles and leapt into action.

By the time the final show rolled around that night, Hennessy was exhausted, but if she could trade a full night’s sleep, consequence-free, for the day she’d had, she wouldn’t. She could keep this memory forever. When was the last time she’d had innocent fun? What was one night’s sleep in a million regrets, in comparison? Her mood sobered as she waited backstage, breathing in the sawdust and the hot air, the two substances equally irritating in her lungs. _This is flying right under their noses_ , she assured herself. _This is how you get the last laugh_. She glanced toward June’s catwalk and Madox’s lions, Jordan’s paintings done carefully but swiftly, Trinity with her doe eyes standing beside her, breathing the same air. Everyone was Hennessy tonight. And Hennessy herself was no one. As it ought to be, if the universe paid its debts. Trinity squeezed her hand, as if stage fright, after everything, could be a concern to them. Tonight they were Muses. Tonight they were gods.

And then everything went to pieces.


End file.
